Micro CoGen.

OK, I'm currently in the land of the Changfa... but other than seeing lots of them in use, I've no actual specs on any...

Approx how much does a 12hp Changfa (or clone) weigh?

Under my race car transporter coach, I've currently got an old 4-cyl Ford 1.8 diesel engine attached to a 6kva alternator. I'm wondering if a Changfa-style engine would be significantly lighter than the old Ford lump. Probably easier to start too...

I'm currently in China, in the city of Zhengzhou - a large modern metropolis in the Henan district. Funny place, China.... I recorded this short video of a Changfa diesel earning its keep (in fairness, this one's having a very easy time of it), right in the middle of town, whilst some seriously flashy and expensive cars drove by on the road...



I've often wondered why Changfas came with a headlight on one end... well, now I know: Because they're often at the front of a tricycle "motorbike"/tractor machine, being driven up the highway at speeds approaching 10 or even 11mph! In the middle, it must be said, of traffic doing up to 60mph! They also mix it with the millions of electric scooters, small motorbikes, small electric "trucks", and all sorts of other vehicles which - if you hadn't seen so many of them - you'd swear were cobbled together from things found around the home.

If you're here reading this because LEF is down - apologies. Our host has just informed me of an urgent maintenance update which will be taking place starting around 2 hours from now, and requires all servers to be rebooted.

Since rebooting LEF usually causes the server to die & require manual restarting, I figured I'd post this here. If LEF is down, please try again in a few minutes as I hope to have it back up in short order.


Cheers!
Ade.

Flew into Washington DC on Saturday night, spent 3 days in Roanoke NC, then a day in Baltimore MD, now in Dallas TX, going to Pheonix AZ for the weekend then up to SFO, Vancouver and Portland OR.

I'll be honest, I don't know what day it is, let alone what timezone I'm in. At least it's not snowing here...

I've finally sorted out a source of free used veg oil.... which means I will soon need to be centrifuging said oil to make nice clean oil for the Lister...

Being a cheapskate, I planned to make my own. I'm thinking of using an old car brake drum as the rotor - but it's cast iron & I know CI is not so good under expansion forces. I reckon that, assuming a car with 36" diametert wheels including tyres, at 150mph, the brake drum would be doing around 1400rpm. But I want to drive it at >2500rpm... will it hang together, or should I make one out of aluminium instead?

Cheers!
Ade.

Seems the ALL Power boys have come up with a rather smart wood-gas genset system, "Power Pallets"

http://www.gekgasifier.com/products/10-20kw-power-pallets

10kW or 20kW sizes; not especially cheap at $19k + shipping/taxes for the 10k unit, but it strikes me that these things could be the start of something rather cool. One wonders if mass production could bring the price down somewhat - and if production could be licensed out, that would kill off a lot of shipping fees. I reckon if you've a good source of wood, this could be the start of a really nice cogen system.

Chatting with hwew the other day, I remembered a vauge reference to an eBay auction for replacement Magic Smoke - specifically for old British sports cars, which have a tendancy to let the magic smoke out of their wiring harnesses with distressing regularity.

Anyway, some googling later, I found the page I'd remembered, and figured I'd share it with you all, because it's quality:

http://www3.telus.net/bc_triumph_registry/smoke.htm

Enjoy!

So, it looks like I'm coming back to America again! Woo! 2nd time inside of 12 months (after 39 years of not getting around to it...).

Same deal as when I was in Orlando really; I'm flying over on the 9th May, I'll be working for a couple of days, have the weekend to myself, then another day's work & then flying out. I'll be staying somewhere in/near Livermore, CA, where the client is based; which looks like an easy(?) 50 mile drive to San Francisco on the Saturday... the question is, are there any forum guys out that way, and if so, what would you recommend to see/do during my weekend off? I've considered hiring a Mustang and doing a Steve McQueen down that hill, but I suspect I won't be particularly popular with the local cops if I try that one out.... or the hire company for that matter...

My only experiences of "San Francisco" are thanks to GTA:San Andreas....

BTW, I've checked, and Virgin won't allow me to stow a Lister Diesel in the overhead lockers, sorry 

Does anyone on this list live within reasonable driving distance of Chapel Hill, NC (slap bang in the middle of NC, it seems), who would be willing to pick up a car for me & store it for a few months (no later than December)? Vehicle needs picking up by 1st March, the vendor wants cash on collection, so I would pay you the $ up front, for you to take to him. Reasonable costs + fuel paid for of course, as well as storage costs. My plan is to come over, pick the car up, drive it around for a little while, then export to the UK.

Ordinarily, I'd try to do all this myself, but this particular car is looking like a good 'un, at the right price; just at the wrong time. The deal may not yet happen, but I didn't want to contact the vendor in advance unless I can definitely come through for him. Please drop me a PM if you can help.

Thanks

So, I'm coming to Florida in the next couple of days, staying for a week (wish it were longer, but not possible this time), then going home...

My UK cellphone will work in the US, but I get charged £1.20 (about $1.95) per minute for either making OR receiving calls... On the other hand, someone phoning a US cell phone from a UK landline, will be charged a maximum of £0.19 ($30c approx); plus they get to pay not me

So, question is, is it still possible to rock up to a shop in the US & buy a pre-paid cell phone without any form of US address or ID (well, I'll have my passport obviously)? If so, what network do you recommend?

I did have a look at AT&T's website, but it looks like they only do plan-based phones, even for pre-paid...

In early November, I'll be doing a call center expo in Orlando (mmm, exciting.... not), we need to use a big (50" or more) TV for 3 days, and the hire company want $600 for the pleasure...

We're thinking, spend $400 and buy one; then sell it on before we fly back to the UK for say $300....

So, does anyone in/near Orlando fancy a cheap TV? PM me if you're interested...

Cheers,
Ade.

Yes! This time it's true - the Willem C. Andree engine with it's cheap-ass 100,000 hour guarantee has been TRUMPED by someone in the UK selling Listeroids - who claims, get this, that Lister's "are known" to run over 200,000 unattended!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270875634475

OK, in fairness, he (she?) doesn't actually guarantee they'll last 200k hours unattended (where there are gypos, you'd be lucky if it lasted 20 hours before being swiped and sold to a scrap yard), and obviously the title of this post is pure provocation (aka "made you look").

Still, 200k hours eh? I wonder if that's running or not....  

Interesting photo album here. Try not to snigger at the name...

So, I just took delivery of a 3phase 6kva alternator head - a brushed unit unfortunately, but at less than £400, I'm not arguing. The biggest issue is it's a 3000rpm unit, and I don't have a suitable pulley. I'm trying to work out what size pulley I need to buy, to attach it to a 6-horse Lister CS.... and yes, I know that's not enough horses to run the alt flat out, but I can't see me ever needing 6kva of 3-phasedness, except maybe starting the lathe, and the flywheel momentum should take care of that.

Anyhoo... I have the heavy S-o-M flywheels on my Lister which, I believe, are 23-5/8" diameter (not sure why they didn't make 'em 24"). But that's the OD, and not the belt diameter... I've checked my Machinery's Handbook, and it seems to suggest you just multiply out the pulley ODs; but the actual working diameter is the "datum diameter" - and there's no "fixed" datum diameter for a B-section belt. Which seems a bit mad.

So... given I want to run a 23-5/8" OD flywheel at 650rpm to turn an X" OD pulley at 3000rpm.... what is X? I guess it doesn't matter if it's a tiny bit out, as I can just tweak the governer to suit, and I'm sure that running at something like 653rpm or 646rpm won't hurt the Lister...

BTW, I currently have a 10" pulley on the 1500rpm ST head, and that's too big for it - the engine is running at around 600rpm & is consequently under power...

All thoughts & solutions appreciated, ta! 

Questions to those more knowledgeable than I....


I have an APC 3000XL uninterruptable PSU I scored for a low price, as it had been dropped & all the plastic smashed off. I particularly like the fact it will run my entire server cab - which draws ~650W continuous - with ample runtime.

However, I'd quite like to significantly enlarge the battery bank, to massively boost the runtime, and also to load it up with the other half of the office + lights (basically, everything except the kettle). That's all well & good, but I've been advised that one shouldn't really increase the amp-hour capacity of the battery bank beyound about double (for an APC XL UPS) its maximum recommended, because the charger wouldn't cope.

My question is: If I wired a massive battery bank into the APC - and then separately wired up a charger, linked to the old Lister set to the appropriate voltage (24 IIRC - so whatever the appropriate charge voltage is for that size battery) - would Bad Things happen to the APC? Or would it cope with the over-voltage?

I'm guessing that, in normal use, it'd use some of the incoming power to recharge the batts, and pass the rest straight through to the consumer side; wheras I will be running the inverter continuously & pumping the volts directly back into the batteries.

Or - am I better off buying a dedicated inverter unit; and if so, which one (would like ~ 3kwatts of peak capacity, although the whole office should normally run on about 1/3rd of that).

Thanks in advance!

....who forgot to trip their Outback converter and knocked power out in Arizona/California/New Mexico then?



More to the point, was anyone with a working Lister(oid) generator affected who finally got to use it?

Have you been wondering what to do with that old ride-on lawnmower, and your rowing boat?

Well.... here's the answer: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/8510117/Amphibious-vehicle-made-from-lawnmower-and-rowing-boat.html

There are some pics here which should give you some construction ideas.

There will be a prize for the first lawnboat that'll do 50mph on both land & sea...

Now go to it!

I defy you to find a bigger bang than this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0iTLrI9G7k



(there are several versions of the same blowup on YouTube, this is not necessarily the best).

Does anyone have a Lister (3/1 or 6/1) with a decent radiator? If so, would you be prepared to take some good close-up photos showing the structure of the rad, and maybe take some measurements?

Please PM me if you can do so.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Ade.

...Spencer is selling up:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260737573083

Just remember, if you're looking seriously at purchasing, that the engine has significant wear (maybe ash related, maybe something else)...

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UPDATE: I've spoken to Spencer, he'd like to point out that the wear is only really the bore & rings - both of which are basically service items - the rest of the setup is fine (and I've no reason to doubt him). The engine is still in daily use, but only to re-charge the battery bank, and is no longer being used for full-time power.

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